It has been an injury-plagued season for Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf. A lower-body injury hampered him during training camp and kept him out of five other games then he suffered a fractured cheek bone in late October. He returns to the lineup tonight against Carolina. (Photo by Christine Cotter, The Associated Press)

ANAHEIM — The Ducks will have Ryan Getzlaf back in the lineup for the first time in more than a month when they take on the Carolina Hurricanes tonight at Honda Center.

It was an Oct. 29 game in Carolina when Getzlaf suffered a fractured cheekbone when hit by a teammate’s shot that ramped up off the stick of Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho and struck him on the left side of the face.

It has been an injury-plagued season for Getzlaf. A lower-body injury hampered him during training camp and kept him out of five other contests. The center has played in only six games, though he had seven points, including three in a win at Tampa Bay, before being struck.

“I’m excited,” Getzlaf said. “I’ve got to go out there with some energy. Obviously these guys have been grinding the last little while here. I’ve been trying to prepare myself but it’s only the first game. I don’t want to set things too high. I just want to go out and play.”

The Ducks went 6-7-6 in the 19 games they didn’t have Getzlaf since that Carolina game. They’ve also dealt with injuries to several other players, but Ducks coach Randy Carlyle wasn’t keen on assessing how they fared without their star captain.

“I don’t really look at it as we’ve accomplished anything,” Carlyle said. “I think we’ve got lots of hockey left. We leave that up to other people positively or negatively how they’re going to describe what’s happened.

“What we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to bring our group every day to the rink and say ‘Hey, we’ve got to get better today. We can get better.’”

Jakob Silfverberg (upper body) also appeared ready to return after a five-game absence. Silfverberg has six goals and six assists in 25 games. The winger is another important two-way forward who the Ducks lean on heavily, but Carlyle voiced caution over any assumption that they’re ready to take off.

“As a coach, you always guard against other people taking their foot off the gas pedal because of the higher-level players coming back, that it’s going to be easier,” Carlyle said. “It’s not going to be easier.

“Those players haven’t been in the lineup for a while. They’re going to take some time to get up to speed also. So I just want to caution our group.”

Joseph Blandisi (upper body) will be back following three missed games after getting hurt in the third period in Nashville. Nick Ritchie (upper body) and Hampus Lindholm (upper body) have not practiced and won’t play. It will be the fourth straight contest that Lindholm has sat out.

John Gibson (8-10-3, 2.96 GAA, .920 save percentage) will get the start in goal. Andy Welinski is expected to make his NHL debut after being recalled from San Diego (AHL) on Saturday. Forward Kevin Roy and defensemen Jaycob Megna were sent to the Gulls, as was right wing Jared Boll, who cleared waivers.

Here is the projected lineup for the Ducks:

Rickard Rakell-Ryan Getzlaf-Corey Perry

Andrew Cogliano-Adam Henrique-Jakob Silfverberg

Joseph Blandisi-Antoine Vermette-Ondrej Kase

Chris Wagner-Derek Grant-Logan Shaw

Cam Fowler-Josh Manson

Francois Beauchemin-Brandon Montour

Andy Welinski-Kevin Bieksa

The Hurricanes (11-10-7) are coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to the Kings on Saturday. They did manage to grab a point due to a third-period rally where Victor Rask and Elias Lindholm scored goals to erase a two-goal deficit.

Shaky special teams have hampered a team that’s ordinarily very strong with puck possession. Carolina did get a power-play goal Saturday, but is just 15 for 92 (16.3 percent) with the man advantage and is 27th in the league. It is also 29th in penalty killing with just a 75.4 percent success rate.

What helps the Hurricanes’ cause is the fact that they don’t do much of it. Routinely the least-penalized team in the NHL, the Hurricanes have been shorthanded only 69 times. They’ve had to kill off two or fewer penalties on 19 occasions.

In the Ducks’ 4-3 shootout win on Oct. 29, Carolina did not take a penalty.

“They’ve got a very disciplined group,” Carlyle said. “They don’t take a lot of penalties. They’re a strong possession team if you look at their so-called possession numbers. They’re tops in the league in possessing the puck. So that can be part and parcel of why they don’t take so many penalties.

“If we can play more of a grind game and get possession in the offensive zone and force them to play defense more than they’ve been accustomed to, then I think we’ll draw penalties.”

Part of their possession game is winning faceoffs. The Hurricanes are the best with a 53.2 percent success rate. Jordan Staal is seventh in the NHL at 56.1 percent for players who’ve taken a minimum of 400 draws. Marcus Kruger doesn’t take as many but is also doing well at 56.6 percent.